


Further, More

by horrorgremlin (catstuff)



Series: Once Bitten [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Abusive relationship aftermath, Gen, PTSD, Transgender Characters, Vampires, post-abuse social dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23671165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catstuff/pseuds/horrorgremlin
Summary: “I amsonot trying to be her wingman. But there’s something that wasn’t there before, in the way that she talks about you. I’m not saying this doesn’t worry me, or that it’s any of my business. I just thought you should know, she cares what you think.”
Series: Once Bitten [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1702981
Kudos: 3





	Further, More

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: PTSD, post-abuse social dynamics.

“Okay,” Grayson says, “but why am I coming with you?”

“I told you.” Mariah’s tone is matter-of-fact as always as she leads Grayson down a new-to-him twist of the windowless world through the back of the underground tavern. Her heels echo dramatically off the concrete floor. “I want you to meet my business partner.”

Grayson hums, skeptical. “I know it’s a little late for this, but I’m still not looking to get more tangled up in the underworld than I have to.”

“It’s just a local black market hub,” Mariah chides, amused, stopping in front of an unmarked door and pulling out a key. “‘Underworld,’ though. I like that. You think I’d make a good Persephone?”

Grayson thinks about it. The lock clicks and the door swings open. Then he sees who’s waiting for them inside, and every thought drops down out of his mind and into his stomach.

Samar’s easy smile would look sheepish on anyone’s face but eirs.

“Hey, Grayson.”

-

_Hey joey it’s me new number. I’m sorry i left without saying goodbye. I miss you so much and this has been the worst year of my life. I feel like i abandoned you guys but i keep telling myself you would understand_

_Of course I understand. Things only got weirder since you left, you probably saw that coming, but we manage and you shouldn’t worry about us. G misses you too. I didn’t tell her you texted me, I’m just pretty sure she does. Really glad you’re okay._

_Good please don’t tell ANYONE that i contacted you. I feel fucking crazy about it but i NEED to know that she has zero new information no matter how small from any source. You’re the only one i trust with anything at all right now. And i am really not ok but thanks for the thought_

_I won’t say a thing. I’ve already been deleting your messages as they come in, figured you would want me to. She has no reason to look for or suspect anything, but even if she does, she won’t find it. I won’t tell G or anyone else. I miss you, though._

-

“I’ll give you kids some time to catch up,” Mariah says, a little too shrewdly, and exits with a flourish.

When the echo of her footsteps recedes, Grayson tentatively asks, “So, have you been here this whole time?”

Samar shrugs. “Depends what you mean by that. I didn’t know you were in Cleveland until she told me, a while after she first ran into you here. But then she didn’t want to organize a reunion right away.” A hint of sarcasm slips into eir voice, not biting, but casually, calmly damning. “You know how she is about things.”

Grayson nods, suspicious. Samar is unfazed by his stone-faced stare.

“I’ve been here for a while,” e continues. “I wasn’t exactly hanging out with Mariah the whole time since we last talked, but we kept in touch here and there. I didn’t full on cut and run like you guys. Not that I'm judging it. Like, I know her.”

Grayson looks down at his shoes. He believes Samar, even though that doesn’t fully mitigate the ground-in stains of practiced shame; it’s more that it’s been a long time since he had to think about anyone else’s troubles with Mariah besides his own. It’s been a long time since he had the space to. It’s kind of jarring.

“Hey.” Samar lays eir hand on Grayson’s shoulder, a small steadying weight. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I’d love to talk, I really would, but it’s your call, and I wouldn’t like having this sprung on me either.” Grayson’s eyes dart up toward the door. Samar holds back a grimace; it’s been years since e had to see someone else close to Mariah reacting to her. The damage that woman has done. “I’d cover for you, obviously.”

“No,” Grayson decides. “That’s okay, you shouldn’t… I don’t want to play those games again.”

“Good. Me neither.”

The door latch clicks, and not five minutes after leaving, Mariah sweeps back into the room, carrying two loosely filled opaque trash bags. She feigns a pout at the tense mood.

“Everyone getting along in here?”

Samar walks to the middle of the room and sits down on a low-backed couch, whose torn old cushions are a slightly nauseous shade of green. E beckons Grayson over, gesturing to the other side of the couch.

“Go on, get comfortable,” Mariah says, as if narrating on Samar’s behalf. She empties bundles of frightening rags out of her trash bags into a full-size washing machine that is by far the most modern thing in the room.

Grayson feels the same kind of mildly troubled every time he discovers something new about how this operation is run.

“Are you trying to get the stains out?”

“I guess,” she answers noncommittally, pouring liquid detergent in the manner of an overeager novice chef, measuring generously by eye. She starts the machine and circles around in front of the couch. “It’s important to look like we run a hygienic operation. Obviously our vamp patrons aren’t worried about catching anything, and that’s most of what we get. It’s more about professionalism.” She peels off a pair of single-use gloves and discards them. “On the rare occasion that we get a live human in here, they get fresh rags anyway. Don’t want to scare them off with the bloodstains before we get a chance to do business.”

“Why the gloves, then?”

Mariah wrinkles her nose. “It’s gross.”

Grayson chews on that while Mariah picks at the mountain of objects piled on the coffee table in front of the couch, throwing out old crusty takeout containers, stacking loose papers before they can get lost, and, with a strangely unnecessary blush, snatching up a neon bra and tucking it away somewhere.

“You know, you could have tidied up a little,” she snaps at Samar, distracted. “I told you we were having company.”

“He’s seen your apartment, Mariah. The old one _and_ the new one. He knows you live in filth.” Samar is as calm as a still lake, just as Grayson remembers, and that steadiness fills him with a wave of deep gratitude and regret.

“I clean as much as I need to,” Mariah quips, grabbing a bin of clean rags and heading for the door again. “I’ll be back.” The door clicks shut behind her.

“Sorry about that,” Samar says with an apologetic smile. “So, yeah, this is pretty much what I’ve been up to for the last… two or three years? She invited me to run things with her once she had the business all set up, that’s when I moved here, but she pretty much manages everything. She only needs me for the boring stuff: bookkeeping, recordkeeping, inventory. That and I think she might go crazy without someone else to talk at.”

Grayson starts to chuckle and winds up coughing instead. Samar smiles like e understands, and Grayson takes a moment to appreciate how good it feels to be back in the presence of an old friend.

“Hey, so,” he says when he’s done savoring, “you know about – ?” He gestures awkwardly at himself.

“Yeah,” Samar nods. “I’m filled in.”

Although e’s acting and speaking exactly as Grayson remembers, Samar’s personal style, like his own, has gone through a major overhaul.

“Are you…?”

E smiles. “Yeah. I’m going by Samar now.”

“Okay. And, is it uh…”

Now Samar looks uncharacteristically bashful, eyes darting down under purple-brushed lids. 

“You know, uh, spivak pronouns? E/em/eir?”

Grayson shakes his head slowly. 

“No. Like, I know there’s stuff out there, but I’ve never met anyone who used anything besides he, she, or they.” He feels terribly responsible for the slightly crestfallen look that crosses Samar’s face at this. “Sorry, I’ve been kind of isolated.”

Disappointment gives way to sympathy. “I get that. I’ll send you a thing? The history’s actually pretty interesting.”

Grayson nods eagerly at this and Samar’s easy smile is back in an instant, like it never left; like _he_ never left. Moved by a strong compulsion, he reaches out and grips eir knee.

“I’ve missed you.”

E lays a hand on Grayson’s and squeezes. 

“I missed you too.”

“I’m so sorry I left you there –”

“Hey,” Samar cautions, putting eir free hand on Grayson’s shoulder to steady him. “You didn’t. I know what was going on. You had to leave. It was a good decision.”

“I know, but.” Grayson sniffs, eyes watering. “I’m still sorry.”

He takes Samar’s hand from his shoulder, clasps it in both of his own, and holds it tightly to his chest, trying to collect himself. This isn’t the time for an emotional meltdown; she’ll be back soon.

-

_Joe i just had a really fucked up dream, please promise me you won’t let her do whatever fucked up thing she’s going to do next i can’t stop thinking about it_

_Are you sure you don’t want me to kick her ass for you? It might not be unethical to kill someone who’s already dead. Hang in there man._

_Why are you still there? Why do you still talk to her? Why won’t you get away? You know she’ll destroy you eventually too she destroys everyone. You won’t see it coming_

_I don’t mind keeping an eye on her. At least this way you know for sure she’s still here. Anyway, to be blunt, I think she’s only dangerous to people she wants to fuck._

_She fucks everyone eventually don’t say i didn’t warn you_

-

Samar and Grayson don’t look up this time when Mariah returns. She opens her mouth to give a greeting or a reprimand, but as the door swings shut behind her, her voice falls short. The two are turned toward each other on the couch, their knees resting easily against one another, laughing together at something on one of their phones as if they haven’t missed a beat. They’re practically making doe eyes at each other – were they even that close before? 

“What’s going on here?” Mariah blurts.

“Just catching up,” Samar answers in a clearly practiced, cool tone, then improvises, “I was just telling Grayson about that one party a few years ago. You know, when you thought you saw –”

“Hey Samar,” Mariah interrupts hastily, “if you’re not actually doing anything, would you mind checking up front? We might have a couple guests by now.”

Samar’s eyes flick toward Grayson, who angles his chin ever so slightly toward the door, letting em know he’ll be fine.

“No problem.” Samar gives Grayson a squeeze on the arm and a tenuously comforting smile, and then e leaves the two of them alone together.

Mariah perches on the arm of the couch without resting her full weight on it, checking her phone screen for absent notifications, the textbook image of feigned nonchalance.

“So,” she says, “how’s it going?”

Grayson has to do a double take. What… is this?

“It’s fine,” he answers slowly. “How are you doing?”

“Fantastic, of course. I’ve got all my favorite people together in one place.” She ruffles his hair and leans down to plant a kiss on his temple. 

“Right,” Grayson says, beginning to put it together. “You like to keep your things where you can see them.”

Now it’s Mariah’s turn to do a double take, ever prepared to defend herself at a moment’s notice.

“Do you seriously think that –”

Both she and Grayson are spared the rest of her tirade by Samar’s return.

“One regular,” e announces. “I put her in room 1. And someone I don’t recognize, says they’re supposed to talk to you?”

“Right,” Mariah mumbles, more to herself than to Samar, smoothing out her clothes and fixing her hair from her far-away reflection in a mirror on the back wall. “New connection. I’ll be back.” She pauses in the doorframe to shoot an agitated glare at Grayson before pulling herself away.

Grayson turns to Samar. “Did you see that? What the fuck was that?”

“Yeah, I saw.” Samar grimaces, shaking eir head slowly as e sits back down. “You know, she’s…” Eir tone is unusually somber, and e chooses eir words carefully. “I will never make excuses for Mariah. Never. She can’t take back any of the shitty and horrifying things she’s done. She’s chilled out a lot, but she hasn’t really changed, and I don’t know if she ever will.”

Grayson’s eyes shift vacantly down to the threadbare area rug.

“I know.”

Samar pauses, takes in Grayson’s guilty posture, and amends, “I didn’t mean it like – it’s not like you don’t know what you’re getting into. It’s complicated for you.”

Grayson nods, but keeps his eyes downcast.

“I just.” E sighs again. “I am _so_ not trying to be her wingman. But there’s something that wasn’t there before, in the way that she talks about you. I’m not saying this doesn’t worry me, or that it’s any of my business. I just thought you should know, she cares what you think.”

-

_Thought i saw her tonight. Wound up in this weird as hell vampire club. Did NOT like what was happening there. I just left and i didn’t see her again but it wasn’t her right?_

_Shit man, were you at that weird thing in Oregon?_

_In eugene? Fucked up hell circus? Shit shit shit fuck i only went for the open bar i’m so fucking stupid_

_Don’t worry, she’s already on her way back here. She didn’t have a good time tonight either. I’ll text you after she gets in._

_Are you sure? Do you know where she was staying?_

_I promise she’s on the road, F. She sent me a snapchat while she was driving. I’ll keep you posted, just please try to take care of yourself and relax a little, alright? Find something safe to eat._

_I hope she crashes alone and dies in a fire. I hope she didn’t see me but if she saw me i don’t want to know anything she says about me! She doesn’t get to talk about me and i don’t care what she fucking thinks anyway all i need to know is that she’s far far away from me forever_

-

Grayson frowns, taking Samar’s words in. “She never seemed to care about that before.”

“I think she did in like, a fucked up way,” Samar says. “She cared how it affected her. Now she’s actually trying to be, I don’t know, less solipsistic I guess?” E shrugs. “It’s not a high bar, but as the most neutral person involved, I’m seeing some kind of change. You saw how nervous she is about us talking? That’s new to me too.”

“Huh.” Grayson has had a similar impression so far, but it feels more real, more believable, having someone else confirm it, knowing it’s not just wishful thinking on his part. But even given that, Mariah learning to be considerate, empathetic, unselfish... it still feels just as unlikely, just as impossible.

For a quiet minute, both Grayson and Samar soak in and ponder the strange sobriety of openly discussing Mariah’s enigmatic moods and motives.

Then Grayson remembers another old puzzle piece, one he hasn’t thought about in more than momentary flashes for years.

“Do you,” he starts. His forehead creases, and he looks up at Samar. “Did you ever hear from Fletcher? After?”

Meeting Grayson’s eyes, Samar hesitates only a second before answering, “No.”


End file.
